Somerset County children better off than last year, report says

Children in Somerset County are suffering as a result of the great recession, but they’re generally better off than children in all but two other counties in the state.

That’s the overall finding of the 2012 Kids Count report, based on 2010 and 2011 data on more than a dozen key measures, including birth weight, health insurance coverage, family income, early education programs and free and reduced-price meal usage.

Only Morris (1) and Hunterdon (2) counties were ranked higher than Somerset County, which had held fourth place in the group’s 2011 report.

“Somerset County children have some of the best outcomes in the state, ranking in the top three on many of the Kids Count measures of child well-being,” said Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of Advocates for Children of New Jersey, the child research and advocacy organization behind the study.

The well-being of Somerset County children improved — in some cases dramatically — in certain areas, including family income, women receiving prenatal care and juvenile arrests.

The county led the state in expanding health insurance coverage to low-income children, with a 52% increase in children enrolled in NJ FamilyCare/Medicaid, according to the study, which is available at the advocacy group’s website acnj.org and at datacenter.kidscount.org.

Somerset families, on average, earned more in 2010 than in 2009, with median family income rising from about $115,000 to about $127,000. The county ranked first in the state on this measure of family economic security, significantly outpacing the state average of $83,000.

The report cites a significant decline in the county’s juvenile arrest rate, dropping from 21 arrests per 1,000 children under 18 in 2009 to 16 arrests per 1,000 children in 2010. That moved the county from 12th to 10th place in those rankings.

The news wasn’t all good. But even in areas where families with Somerset County children struggled, they were often better off than those in other counties.

Somerset County children living in families earning too little to meet their basic needs significantly increased from 4,456, or 5% of the population in 2006, to 5,295, or 7% in 2010. Statewide, the figure was 14%. Somerset fell from 2nd to 3rd in the Kids Count rankings on this measure.

Zalkind called the increase in child poverty in the county, “concerning,” and said that it “should be a focus for county leaders.”

The child poverty statistic contrasts with Somerset County’s number one ranking in terms of median income of families with children, $126,776.

Nearly half Somerset County households, 48%, spent more than 30% of their income on rent during 2010. Statewide, more than half of family households (51%) spent that much.

The percentage of unemployed workers in Somerset County jumped from 3.1% to 6.5%, up 110%. Still unemployment here is less than the state average of 8.7%.

Somerset County ranks 13 in total population and 13 in child population among the 21 counties, according to the report.

In addition to the county profiles, which measure progress over a 1-year period, ACNJ also released New Jersey Kids Count: The State of Our Counties, a pocket guide that provides a 5-year comparison of various measures of child well-being, including poverty, health, education and child protection.